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Address of 

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t GEN. E. P. ALEXANDER 

I On Alumni Day, West Point Centennial, June 9, 1902 f> 




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FOR SALE AT 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

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THE 

Confederate Veteran 



Address of 

GEN. EtP- ALEXANDER 

On Alumni Day, West Point Centennial, June 9, 1902 




FOR SALE AT 

G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 

^■^ West a 3d Street, New York 






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GIFT 

MRS. V.'OOOfiOW WJUOK 

NOV. 2B, 19» 



The Confederate Veteran 



Address of Gen. E. P. Alexander, on Alumni Day, 
West Point Centennial, June 9, 1902 

DECIDEDLY the feature of Alumni Day, Mon- 
day, June 9th, at West Point, was the speech of 
General E. Porter Alexander of Virginia. It was the 
first occasion on which the Confederate Army had 
been officially recognized in any proceedings at the 
MiHtary Academy. Indeed, it cannot be said to 
have been officially recognized on this occasion, since 
these proceedings were taken under the direction of 
the associated graduates. General Ruger spoke for 
the West Pointers on the Union side, and General 
Alexander for those on the Confederate side. He 
was chief of artillery of Longstreet's corps, and 
directed the Confederate fire in the famous artillery 
duel at Gettysburg. His speech was continually 
applauded, especially his reference to General Long- 
street, who occupied a seat on the platform near the 
speaker, and whose name provoked an outburst of 



cheering that lasted several minutes. Following is 
General Alexander's speech in full: 

" ' Once more the light of Jackson's sword 
Far flashes through the gloom, 
There Hampton rides and there once more 
The toss of Stuart's plume. 

" ' Oh! life goes back through years to-day 
And we are men once more, 
And that old hill is Arlington, 
And there, the alien shore! 

" 'And over yonder on the heights 
The hostile camp-fires quiver. 
And sullenly 'twixt us and them 
Flows by Potomac's river.' 

"The Confederate veteran! With these words 
does there not arise in every mind the thought of a 
meteoric army, which over forty years ago sprang 
into existence, as it would seem, out of space and 
nothingness, and after a career of four years, unsus- 
tained by treasury or arsenal, but unsurpassed for 
brilliant fighting and lavish outpour of blood, van- 
ished from earth as utterly as if it had been a phan- 
tom of imagination. It had followed as a banner, a 
Starry Cross, born in the fire and smoke of its battle 
line ; which had flown over its charging columns on 
many fields, and under many leaders, whose names 
proud history will forever cherish, and then in a 
night it also had taken its flight from earth, to be 
seen no more of men. A Federal historian wrote of 



this army ; ' Who can forget it that once looked upon 
it? That array of tattered uniforms and bright 
muskets — that body of incomparable infantry, 
the Army of Northern Virginia — which for four 
years carried the revolt on its bayonets, opposing a 
constant front to the mighty concentrations of power 
brought against it, which, receiving terrible blows, 
did not fail to give the like, and which, vital in all 
its parts, died only with its annihilation.' 

"And the whole people who had created that an- 
nihilated army and had upheld that vanquished 
flag, and in their behalf had sacrificed its all, now 
with one consent gave to the cause for which they 
had striven vainly, but so well, the title, ' The Lost 
Cause.' And this people mourned over their Lost 
Cause as the captive Israelites mourned over Zion: 
'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand 
forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth.' But they buried their grief deep in 
their own hearts, and, exchanging swords and guns 
for implements of industry, set themselves to re- 
storing their desolated homes and rebuilding their 
shattered fortunes. 

"And now a generation has passed away. The 
smoke of civil conflict has vanished forever from the 
sky, and the whole country, under the new condi- 
tions evolved in its four years' struggle, finds itself 
united in developing its vast resources in successful 
rivalry with the greatest nations of the earth. Whose 

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vision is now so dull that he does not recognize the 
blessing it is to himself and to his children to live in 
an undivided country ? Who would to-day relegate 
his own State to the position it would hold in the 
world were it declared a sovereign, as are the States 
of Central and South America ? To ask these ques- 
tions is to answer them. And the answer is the 
acknowledgment that it was best for the South that 
the cause was 'lost.' The right to secede, the stake 
for which we fought so desperately, were it now 
offered us as a gift, we would reject as we would a 
proposition of suicide. Let me briefly review the 
story of this change of sentiment. 

"We believed, and still believe, that its sover- 
eignty was intended to be reserved by each and 
every State when it ratified the Constitution. It 
was universally taught among us that in this feature 
there was divinely inspired wisdom. It may have 
been wisdom for that century. Each State was then 
an independent agricultural community. The rail- 
road, the steamship, the telegraph, were undreamed 
of on earth. But, as in nature, whenever the cli- 
mate has changed, the fauna and flora have been 
forced to change and adapt themselves to new en- 
vironments, so among mankind must modes of gov- 
ernment be modified to conform to new conditions. 
The steamboat, railroad, and telegraph by i860 had 
made a new planet out of the one George Washing- 
ton knew. National commerce had been born, and 



it was realized that State sovereignty was utterly 
incompatible with its full development. The 'in- 
spired wisdom' of the previous century had now 
become but foolishness. Nature's great law of evo- 
lution, against which no constitution can prevail, at 
once brought into play to overturn it forces as 
irresistible as those of a volcano. But such Dar- 
winian conceptions as those of political evolution 
had then entered few men's minds. Patrick Henry 
had said, ' Give me liberty or give me death.' Surely 
it would not be liberty if we could not secede when- 
ever we wished to. Holding these views, we should 
have been cowards had we not resisted for all we 
were worth. And posterity should be grateful for 
our having forced the issue and fought it out to the 
bitter end. 

"Now, I have learned to appreciate the limited 
range of Patrick Henry's views, and have discarded 
them in favor of Darwinian theories. I want neither 
liberty nor death ; I want conformation to environ- 
ment. And as the changes in our planet still go on, 
and as international commerce has grown up, a 
Siamese twin to national commerce, I applaud our 
nation's coming out of the swaddling bands of its 
infancy and entering upon its grand inheritance. 
Let it stand for universal civilization. This is but 
a small and crowded planet, now that science has 
brought its ends together by her great inventions. 
Neither states nor nations can longer dwell to them- 

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selves. An irrepressible conflict is on between bar- 
barism and civilization. Through human imperfec- 
tion much that must be done may seem harsh and 
cruel. Much that has happened doubtless was so to 
our aborigines, but for all that we must look forward 
and not backward and walk boldly in the paths of 
progress. 

"Now, for their bearing upon my story, let me 
speak briefly of two matters of history. Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams, in a recent address, has pointed out 
that it is due to General Lee that at Appomattox, in 
April, 1865, a- surrender of the Confederate Army 
was made, instead of the struggle being prolonged 
into a guerilla war, such as has been recently seen 
in South Africa. This action does indeed place Lee 
upon an exalted plane. And it fortunately hap- 
pened that his rival actor in this great drama was 
General Grant, a brother graduate of the Military 
Academy. Our Alma Mater may cherish the record 
of that day, when two of her sons, having each writ- 
ten his name so high in the annals of war, now 
united to turn the nation into the paths of peace. 
For General Grant, who has been proudly called 
by his victorious army ' Unconditional Surrender ' 
Grant, now seemed only to seek excuses to spare the 
Confederates every possible mortification and to 
save them from individual losses, even at the ex- 
pense of his own government. His example was 
immediately followed by every man in his army 



down to the humblest teamster. Time fails me to 
describe the friendliness, courtesy, and generosity 
with which the whole victorious army seemed filled. 
The news of the surrender and of its liberal terms was 
received everywhere with similar feelings of gener- 
ous conciliation. In proof, it is only necessary to 
refer to the early negotiations between Sherman and 
Johnston. President Lincoln also fully shared these 
feelings, and even planned for the South financial 
compensation for its loss of property by the emanci- 
pation of its slaves. Thus, for six days, — from April 
9th to 14th, — there was every prospect that recon- 
struction would be accomplished in the spirit mani- 
fested by Grant and under the direction of Lincoln, 
who, without her knowledge, was at that time the 
South's most powerful friend. Our treatment would 
have been not less liberal than that we have just 
seen accorded by the British to the Boers. 

" Oh, the pity of it! That this spirit of peace and 
good-will could not have been permitted to spread 
over the whole country, and influence the breasts 
alike of both victors and vanquished. By the fatu- 
ous act of an assassin, in a moment this fair vision 
was shattered, and in its place, and without fault 
upon her part, there was invoked against the pros- 
trate South a whirlwind of rage and resentment. 
Indeed, it is due to the restraint put upon the politi- 
cal leaders of the North by General Grant that the 
death of Lincoln did not mark for the South the 



beginning of greater woes than those of the war 
itself. 

"There resulted many years of bitterness and 
estrangement between the sections, retarding the 
growth of national spirit and yielding but slowly, 
even to the great daily object-lesson of the develop- 
ment of our country. But at last, in the fulness of 
time, the stars in their courses have taken up the 
work. As in 1865 one wicked hand retarded our 
unification by the murder of Lincoln, so in 1898 
another assassin, equally wicked and equally stupid, 
by the blowing up of the Maine, has given us a com- 
mon cause and made us at last and indeed a nation, 
in the front rank of the world's work of civilization, 
with its greatest problems committed to our care. 

" But there is still one thing more to be said. Was 
all our blood shed in vain? Was all the agony en- 
dured for the Lost Cause but as water spilled upon 
the sand? No! A thousand times, no! 

"We have set the world record for devotion to a 
cause. We have given to our children proud mem- 
ories, and to history new names, to be a theme and 
an inspiration for unborn generations. The heroes 
of future wars will emulate our Lees and Jacksons. 
We have taught the armies of the world the casual- 
ties to be endured in battle; and the qualities of 
heart and soul developed both in our women and 
men, in the stress and strain of our poverty and in 
the furnace of our affliction, have made a worthier 



race, and have already borne rich reward in the 
building up of our country. But, above and beyond 
all, the firm bonds which to-day hold together this 
great nation could have never been wrought by 
debates in Congress. Human evolution has not yet 
progressed so far. Such bonds must be forged, 
welded, and proved in the heat of battle and must 
be cemented in blood. Peace Congresses and arbi- 
trations have never yet given birth to a nation, and 
this one had to be bom in nature's way. 

"So much for the attitude of the South and the 
steps through which it has been reached. But bear 
with me yet a little, for I cannot leave the thoughts 
and memories evoked by my theme without some 
reference to a few among the great figures who 
moved amid those scenes, lest my story should seem 
to you as one of Hamlet with Hamlet left out: 

" ' And Love, where death has set its seal, 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, 
Nor falsehood disavow.' 

"Shall I name to you at once the Confederate 
hero who deserves the highest pedestal, who bore 
the greatest privations, and contributed most freely 
of his blood to win every victory and resist every 
defeat? I name the private soldier. Practically 
without pay and on half rations, he enlisted for life 
or death and served out his contract. He did not 
look the fighting man he was. He was lean, sun- 
burned, and bearded, often barefoot and ragged. 

9 



He had neither training nor discipHne, except what 
he acquired in the field. He had only antiquated 
and inferior arms until he captured better ones in 
battle. He had not even military ambition, but he 
had one incentive which was lacking to his opponents 
— brave and loyal as they were. He was fighting 
for his home. From the time of Greece to that of 
South Africa, all history attests the stimulus of the 
thought of ' home ' to the soldier fighting for it. And 
if some young military scientist among your bright 
boys can formulate an equation to express the battle 
power of an army, I am sure he will find the thought 
of ' home ' to be the factor in it with highest expo- 
nent. So there was nothing anomalous about the 
fighting of our army. We fought for our homes 
under men that we loved and trusted. This brought 
out the best in every individual, whether private or 
general. 

" Upon our President, Jefferson Davis, there fell 
from the necessity of his prominent position not 
only defeat, but obloquy, and woes too many to 
enumerate. History, however, will do him justice 
as having been most worthy to represent us, whether 
as a man, a statesman, or a soldier. And as any 
compromise of the issue at stake would have only 
carried with it the seeds of another war, the nation 
is to be congratulated that to his high courage and 
devotion to his cause no compromise was possible. 
And how now shall I speak to you of the great Lee, 



whom it was an education to know, — never elated, 
and never depressed, but always calm and audacious 
in reliance upon himself and his troops, who in their 
turn relied upon him and loved him unto death; 
of stern and grave Stonewall Jackson, trusting only 
in the God of battles and in the righteousness of his 
cause, but winning by the fierce courage his person- 
ality inspired; of Joseph E. Johnston, master of 
strategy in the great game of war, whose brain was 
' reason's self incased in bone ' ; of Beauregard, who 
won Bull Run by his personal tenacity and with such 
science and skill defended Sumter and Petersburg; 
of Longstreet, whom Lee called his 'old war horse,' 
doing heavy work on every field, from Bull Run to 
Appomattox; of A. P. Hill, whose name was last 
on the lips of Lee upon his death-bed, and of Jackson 
when he ' crossed over the river to rest in the shade 
of the trees ' ; of genial, dashing Stuart, always 
ready for any venture and sanguine of success, who 
took up the battle left unfinished by Jackson's fall 
and carried it to its brilliant end ; of gifted Hamp- 
ton, our Chevalier Bayard, with his sabre-scarred 
face, who served his State as effectively in peace as 
he had done in war, and ' always bore without abuse 
the grand old name of gentleman ' ; of Hood, with 
his one leg and crippled arm, under whom the Tex- 
ans loved to fight ; of good old Ewell, also with his 
one leg, and bald head and lustrous woodcock eye, 
who believed fighting to be the sole business of a 



soldier; of Early, whose unreconciled spirit is per- 
haps still raiding up and down the Valley ; and of a 
thousand others whose forms and faces throng upon 
my memory, and whose names history has inscribed 
upon her roll of honor. 

" It were a shorter task to try and enumerate the 
great fields of battle made historic by their valor. 
Dolorous and bootless Antietam is conspicuous as 
the bloodiest single day in the annals of this con- 
tinent. Pickett's charge at Gettysburg was the 
brilliant culmination of a school of attack which has 
forever passed away with the advent of modern 
arms. But Jackson's Valley campaign will always 
illustrate the correct principles of strategy, however 
weapons may be altered or improved. Wilderness 
and Spottsylvania, where the Federal Army in eight 
days suffered more casualties than befell in all the 
wars from the discovery of America to i860, were 
but the initial combats of what should be called the 
great ' Battle of Grant and Lee,' begun on the Rapi- 
dan on May 4, 1864, and fought without pause until 
ended at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, eleven 
months and six days. History has scarcely a par- 
allel for such supreme display of battle power upon 
each side. At the opening. Grant marshalled 
122,146 men, and 61,274 followed Lee. In its pro- 
gress every available reinforcement was called in by 
each side, the Confederates even robbing the cradle 
and the grave to repair their wasting ranks. At the 



4 

end the Federal losses had reached a total of 124,390. 
The Confederate losses can never be known, for 
their army was wiped out of existence, and no re- 
ports were possible. But the final act was the sur- 
render of 28,356 Confederates to a force of 100,000 
immediately about them — a million men being in 
arms on the Union side. 

"And so, did time permit, lessons could be learned 
and stirring events be depicted from the memories 
of innumerable other scenes. But I prefer to leave 
the picture as it stands. We did n't go into our 
cause, we were born into it. We fought it out to 
its remotest end and suffered to the very utmost its 
dying aches and pains. But they were rich in com- 
pensations and have proven to be only the birth- 
pangs of a new nation, in whose career we are proud 
to own and to bear a part. 

"And to our Alma Mater, who taught us not the 
skill to imravel conflicting political creeds — not 

' ' ' That acumen to divide 
A hair 'twixt South and Sou'west side' — 

but rather to illustrate by our lives manly courage 
and loyalty to convictions, we commend the record 
of 

" 'The Old Confederate Veteran, we know him as he stands 
And Ustens for the thunder of the far-off battle lands. 
He hears the crash of musketry, the smoke rolls like a sea, 

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For he tramped the fields with Stonewall, and he climbed the 
heights with Lee. 

' 'The Old Confederate Veteran, his life is in the past. 
And the war-cloud, like a mantle, round his rugged form is cast. 
He hears the bugle calling o'er the far and mystic sea, 
For he tramped the fields with Stonewall, and he climbed the 
heights with Lee.* " 




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